Fresno again passed for seat Clovis mayor is recommended for air district board. By Mark Grossi The Fresno Bee, Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007 Central California's largest city may not get a seat on the local air district governing board after 12 years of waiting — a neighboring city five times smaller has the inside track. Clovis Mayor Nathan Magsig last week was recommended for the seat on the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District board, ahead of City Council Member Henry T. Perea of Fresno. Fresno, a city of more than 470,000, was last represented on the air board in 1994. Clovis has a population of 90,000. Magsig was recommended for the air board because he is active in the California League of Cities, said one official on the league's executive council. The council made the recommendation last week, and the league's general membership in February will vote on it in accordance with state law. The recommendation frustrated air quality advocates who want some of the 11 air board members to have health or science backgrounds and represent large cities and minorities. "We think the description of the qualifications should be changed, but that didn't happen," said Liza Bolaños, coordinator of the Fresno-based Central Valley Air Quality Coalition. Advocates also noted Magsig is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the district over millions of dollars in developer fees. Magsig heads a nonprofit, affordable housing group, and he said he is only involved in the lawsuit because the district did not exempt such groups. One league executive council member defended Magsig, saying he would fairly represent the central area of the Valley and report regularly to the league. "It's not a matter of picking one council member over another for this recommendation," said Clovis City Council Member Harry Armstrong. "Our problem in the past was that we were not getting reports back from our representatives on the air board." Magsig has been active in the league for more than five years and serves on a policy committee. Perea takes part in the league's Latino Caucus, a nonprofit affiliate of the league. League officials added that Magsig's construction work helps lower-income residents. He is executive director of the Fresno-based, nonprofit Coalition for Urban Renewal Excellence. Magsig said he would refrain from discussing developer fees at board meetings because he is a plaintiff in the lawsuit over the fees. But he said the issue is just one among many. "I hope I can be a fresh voice on the board," Magsig said. "I want to be part of finding a solution to our air problems." Armstrong said representatives of 37 cities in the central part of the Valley would vote on Magsig next month. The cities are known to follow the recommendations of the executive council. Other candidates, such as Perea, still can be nominated at the meeting and run against Magsig. The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Feb. 21 at West Hills Community College in Lemoore. In the past, few people have paid any attention to air board appointments or such elections. But according to opinion polls, air quality has become the No. 1 issue in the Valley, and there has been increased scrutiny of the board. Air advocates last year backed Senate Bill 999 to restructure the air board, hoping to get a physician, a scientist and more members from large cities. The bill failed. Air advocates are becoming involved as the league replaces three seats on the air board. The seats are supposed to represent cities from Stockton to Bakersfield. In November, the league's executive council recommended Jack Ritchie, a Woodlake City Council member and retired farmer, for another of the three seats. His name will come before the membership for the February vote as well. Two minority candidates, Shafter Mayor Fran Florez, mother of state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, and Arvin Mayor Tim Tarver, who is black, were passed over for Ritchie, who is on the league's executive council. Workshop on cleanup activities Staff Reports Stockton Record, Wednesday, January 24, 2007 TRACY - Representatives of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy will hold a public workshop on environmental cleanup activities at Site 300 at 6 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Tracy Community Center, 300 E. 10th St. The workshop will include a poster session on proposed final cleanup actions and standards for most areas of Site 300, the high-explosives test range southwest of Tracy. Federal and laboratory representatives will be available to answer questions. An environmental cleanup at Site 300, property of the U.S. Department of Energy, began in 1981 after the detection of contamination in shallow aquifers on the property. Work has been under way to clean up soil and groundwater contamination. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed Site 300 on the Superfund list in 1990, and cleanup activities have been conducted under U.S. EPA and state regulations. Additionally, a five-year review of environmental cleanup in the southeast corner of Site 300 is complete and available for viewing at the Tracy Branch Library, the laboratory's Discovery Center and online at www-envirinfo.iinl.gov. Bush proposals may aid ethanol producers By David Espo, AP Special Correspondent Fresno Bee, Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007 WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush's push for a new immigration policy and his acknowledgment of global climate change as a serious concern won praise from presidential candidates in both parties Wednesday even as they split on partisan lines over Iraq. Bush appealed to Congress in his State of the Union speech to give his Iraq strategy a chance to work, running into a wall of skepticism, especially from Democrats who control the House and Senate. That response carried over into the morning talk shows, where Democratic presidential aspirants Barack Obama and Bill Richardson voiced firm opposition to Bush's troop escalation. "He has not made the case," Obama, an Illinois senator, said on CBS' "The Early Show." Two Republican presidential hopefuls - Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani - countered that there is no choice but to give Bush's plan a chance to succeed. "It's the only game in town," McCain said on the same program. Giuliani, on NBC's "Today" show, said: "I believe we should give the president the support to do this." Bush also urged lawmakers in his speech Tuesday night to send him legislation helping more Americans afford health insurance, reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, overhaul immigration laws and renew his signature No Child Left Behind education program. He declared climate change a "serious challenge" but did not endorse proposals for mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. "The idea of climate change finally passed his lips," Obama said. "That's long overdue." McCain also welcomed Bush's acknowledgment, while saying "of course" the U.S. needs to go farther than Bush has proposed on the issue. "We've got to start reducing these greenhouse gas emissions before our planet is unalterably heated, and the consequences of that are catastrophic," he said on CNN. Richardson, the New Mexico governor, predicted Bush and the Democratic Congress will be able to work together on a comprehensive plan to control illegal immigration. McCain agreed: "We can come together on that issue." Bush flew to Wilmington, Del., on Wednesday to plug his energy proposals at a DuPont Co. facility where scientists conduct research on biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol, made from wood chips, switch grass and parts of the corn plant other than the kernels used in traditional ethanol. But Democrats kept the spotlight on the war, as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee took up a nonbinding measure that rejects Bush's planned troop increase as "not in the national interest of the United States." As is customary, Republicans cheered longer and louder than Democrats on Tuesday night when Bush walked down the middle aisle of the House chamber to deliver his annual address to Congress and the nation. But it was the Democrats' turn to whoop it up when the president remarked he was the first chief executive to "begin the State of the Union with the words Madam Speaker." Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the first female House speaker, was seated next to Vice President Dick Cheney on the dais behind the president, and smiled and reached down to shake Bush's hand. In power for the first time in a dozen years, Democrats have talked optimistically of finding common ground with the president and Republican lawmakers on immigration, education and other areas. But they voiced concern with his proposal to subject a portion of some taxpayers' employer- provided health insurance to taxes, and were unenthusiastic about his proposals on energy. "For me, the president's speech was more notable for what he didn't say on global warming than what he did say," said Sen. Barbara Boxer. The California Democrat advocates steps to halt the gradual rise in the earth's temperature. The president called for greater domestic oil production as well as an effort to more than quadruple the nation's production of alternative fuels over the next decade. The war is an issue apart - a conflict that helped Democrats win control of Congress in last fall's elections, and that leaves Republicans torn between a president of their party on the one hand and public opinion on the other. Democrats chose Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia to deliver the party's formal televised response to the speech, and the former Republican Navy secretary and Vietnam veteran responded with a blistering attack on the president, the war and the consequences.